President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Ukraine's allies to provide additional support, adding that "every day of delay in the delivery of aid results in more destroyed homes and ruined lives," while his defense minister visited outmanned and outgunned troops on the "tense" front lines as conditions worsened near the embattled town of Chasiv Yar.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, on April 14, Zelenskiy argued that "the world has everything necessary to stop any missiles, Shahed drones, or other forms of terror."
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"It only requires decisions that can restore true and lasting security," he added.
Visiting the front lines on April 14, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that "the situation is tense," a day after Kyiv warned that the conditions on the eastern front had "deteriorated" to dangerous levels.
Ukrainian officials have over the past two days warned about the perilous situation near the strategic town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk region, amid a major Russian offensive.
If Russia takes the town -- which had a prewar population of about 13,000 – it would "create conditions for a deeper advance" toward Kramatorsk, a major rail and logistics hub for Ukrainian forces some 30 kilometers away, commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskiy said.
Syrskiy said Russia's top leadership had ordered the military to capture Chasiv Yar in time for the May 9 commemoration of the Soviet contribution to victory in World War II.
According to Ukraine's military, Russia attacked Ukraine with 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight on April 13-14, all of them launched from Russia's western Kursk region.
"Defenders shot down all 10 drones over the Kharkiv region," air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said.
A civilian truck was struck by a Russian drone in the Sumy region, local prosecutors reported, killing the driver.
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War wrote on April 13 that Russia was "taking advantage" of Ukraine's shortages of artillery shells and air-defense equipment by operating variously in three different areas with "alternating emphasis."
"Russian forces likely lack the ability to conduct more than one simultaneous, effective, large-scale operational effort as they have throughout the war," it wrote. "Russian forces are now able to use multiple alternating offensive efforts to stretch Ukrainian defensive capabilities amid Ukrainian artillery and air-defense shortages."
Responding to Iran's massive overnight drone and missile attack against Israel, Zelenskiy wrote on X on April 14 that Shahed drones were "an instrument of terror."
"We in Ukraine know very well the horror of similar attacks by Russia, which used the same Shahed drones and Russian missiles, the same tactics of mass air strikes," he wrote.
"The obvious collaboration between the two regimes in spreading terror must face a resolute and united response from the world."